1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for managing the setting/updating of a plurality of information devices (network devices) disposed dispersedly on the network, and for managing an easy obtaining of information of the plurality of information devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been used network devices having a plurality of information devices connected to each other on the network. Depending on the installation environment, these network devices require various kinds of initial setting. It is also necessary to update the firmware of the installed network devices as well depending on the situation.
The setting information and the setting/updating data for the firmware and the like to be updated are usually constructed in the data file format. These information and data are input to each network device via data communications on the network or via a recording medium such as a PC card.
However, in order to set the information or update the firmware for a large number of information devices that are scattered on the network by utilizing the data communications on the network, it is necessary to repeat the work of transmitting the setting/updating data to each information device by many times.
Moreover, in order to carry out the setting/updating via the recording medium, it is necessary to bring the recording medium to each information device. For example, a person must actually move to each position of each information device to bring the recording medium.
Further, depending on the situation, it is not preferable to uniformly update the firmware of all the information devices on the network. For example, depending on the situation, the setting/updating data does not match a control/setting command system of the information device, and new setting information does not effectively work.
Moreover, depending on the situation, the required level of updating is different for each information device. However, it is generally difficult to judge from the outside the need for updating each information device. Therefore, there is a possibility that the information device that does not require the updating is also updated inappropriately.
Moreover, some network devices such as network printers have a server function using the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) for the purpose of obtaining device information such as status information and function information of the network device. Such network devices can provide device information in the format of a Web (WWW: worldwide web) page described in the HTML (hypertext markup language). With this arrangement, users can obtain device information of the network devices via a communication network.
For reading a Web page, a browser as exclusive software for reading is necessary. At present, a browser is general software, and various kinds of browsers can be easily obtained at cost or free of charge.
Moreover, for reading a Web page, it is necessary to assign information that identifies a network device for the reading according to the URL (uniform resource locator) standard. Hereinafter, the assigned identification information will be referred to as the URL.
This URL includes various kinds of description methods depending on the network environments used. For example, in the network based on the TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol), it is possible to use an IP address as the URL.
However, in the case of reading Web pages of a plurality of network devices by sequentially switching the Web pages, it has been necessary that a user assigns the URL for each device in the browser at a host computer. Therefore, it has been difficult to obtain information of a plurality of network devices in an easy operation.
Some browsers have a function of storing the URL that the user requires. However, in order to store the URL of each network device, it has usually been necessary that the user once inputs the URL, and then connects to each network device. When the number of network devices becomes enormously large, enormously large labor is necessary for manually inputting the URL of each network device.
Further, the URL stored in the host computer is effective only when this host computer is connected to each network device. Therefore, it is difficult for a certain host computer to connect to a network device by utilizing the URL stored in other host computer.